ON THE NATURE OF THE UNIVERSE

NOTES 2

BOOK FOUR

1.  The opening 25 lines are a repetition of 1.926-50.
2.  In Book Three.
3.  Cf. Epicurus, Letter to Herodotus 46-52.
4.  This establishes a link with the previous book. Indeed it could even be seen that the whole theory of perception here discussed is there mainly to rebut the apparent 'proof' of survival of death afforded by ghosts.
5.  The argument is a fortiori. If visible matter leaves bodies, and invisible matter moves more easily than visible, then there must be even more invisible matter leaving bodies.
6.  Briefly at 56 -- in more detail below at 90-94.
7.  This sort of awning was first used in 78 BC: cf. 6.109-12 and West, The Imagery and Poetry of Lutretius 38-41.
8.  Cf. 150-54, 269-323.
9.  Epicurus argued that all perceptions are true: he now has to show how what are apparent perceptions of monsters do not 'prove' their existence. Cf. 732-48, 5.878-924.
10.  The jingle res. respondent makes better sound than science: elsewhere L. argues that we do not see objects but only the images of them (but see 256-68 for qualification of this).
11.  For the need to overcome the superstitious fear of storms, see 6.48-91.
12.  The swan was said to sing a beautiful song before it died; cf. 3.6-8, Theocritus 5.136.
13. A minute impetus will produce immense speed as L.'s theory of kinetic force sees it as cumulative, not constant; cf. 6.340-42.
14.  A fortiori argument again.
15.  Cf. the atomic proofs resting on the phenomenon of erosion at 1.311-21, 326.
16.  Hardly a watertight inference.
17.  We do not in fact have any sensation of air pushed through our eyes like this, and so this theory can only be stated dogmatically. L. does not deal with the problem of how we can receive elephant-sized films in our small eyes.
18.  L. here attempts to explain how an aggregate of invisible films can be visible: he works on lines similar to those advanced in Book One, where individual atoms are too tiny to be seen but they amass in sufficient numbers to be felt and seen.
19.  Analogy rather than proof of the preceding statement: the 'surface ... color' is misleading, as the stone may be the same color all the way through, and anyway L. means the 'colored surface'. It is analogous in that the solidity of the whole is conveyed by our contact with the topmost surface, just as the topmost surface, when it has flown off the object as a film, causes us to see the whole object.
20.  That is, concave mirrors.
21.  That is, the angle of reflection is equal to the angle of incidence.
22.  L. now begins a section on optical problems in answer to the challenge of Scepticism (on which see Introduction).
23.  Cf. Sextus Empiricus, Outlines of Pyrrhonism 1.44.
24.  A standard argument of the Sceptic (cf. Sextus Empiricus, Outlines of Pyrrhonism 1.32., Annas and Barnes, The Modes of Stepticism 105-6) and a commonly observed phenomenon (cf., e.g., Plato, Republic 602c-d, Euripides, Ion 586-7.
25.  Just as successive static images appear cinematically as moving figures to us (768-76), so do their 'negatives' the shadows.
26.  This is Epicurus' answer to the apparent proof of the mendacity of the senses: see Introduction.
27.  Cf. Sextus Empiricus, Against the Mathematicians. 7.414, Cicero, Prior Academics 2. 25. 81.  L. typically embellishes these illusions to hyperbolic lengths.
28.  Cf. Sextus Empiricus, Outlines of Pyrrhonism 1.118.
29.  Cf. Sextus Empiricus, Outlines of Pyrrhonism 1.118.
30.  The bent oar was another favorite example of illusion: cf. Sextus Empiricus, Outlines of Pyrrhonism 1.119, Annas and Barnes, The Modes of Scepticism 106-9. Notice L.'s high epic style of describing the phenomenon.
31.  Cf. Sextus Empiricus Against the Mathematicians 7.192, Outlines of Pyrrhonism 1.47. A more common cause of this illusion is drunkenness: cf. Petronius, Satyricon 64.
32.  Dreams are an obvious example of illusory experience: cf. 962-1036 for further description and analysis.
33.  Epicurus' to prosdoxazomenon, the premature judgment based on inadequate evidence.
34.  L. now attacks the full Sceptic position thus; if no proposition can be known, then the proposition that no proposition can be known cannot be known either.
35.  Epicurus' perikato trepesthai: see Burnyeat, Phitoto4.gus 122
(1978) 197-2.06.
36.  For the argument from our conception of truth and falsehood cf. 5. 181-6, 1046-9. For the logical position cf. Aristocles' criticism of Melissus (Barnes, The Presocratic Phitosophers 298-302).
37.  L. argues that as the senses operate in different ways, they cannot refute each other (for all that they all operate through touch 2.434-5), and also that we have no reason to prefer one sense over another. He concludes that all senses - and the reasoning based on them - is either totally false or totally true. Our experience rules out the first possibility, so they must all be true. The possibility that some perceptions are false is ruled out because we have no means of discriminating true from false - except through the senses. See Annas and Barnes 6-73.
38.  L. may be making fun of the Roman orators who would filibuster bills in the Senate.
39.  The analysis of speech is not strictly necessary, but is of interest to a wordsmith such as L. : and words are analogous to the images he has described in that a tiny phoneme can summon up the image of a gigantic object at once (785).
40.  If visual films can bounce off mirrors (269-323), then sounds can also bounce in echoes.
41.  L. never misses a chance to mock superstition; for comparable material cf. Herodotus 6.105, Pindar, Pythian 3.79, Dodds, The Greeks and the Irrational (California, 1951) 117 & n. 87.
42.  Satyrs were attendants of the god Dionysus - grotesque, partly bestial and in a permanent state of sexual arousal. The Roman general Sulla was believed to have captured one and brought it back to Rome in 83 BC (Plutarch, Sulla 27).
43.  Fauns were nature-spirits, similar to satyrs.
44.  A goat-like deity of nature, in particular of flocks and shepherds, originating in Arcadia; inventor of the Pan-pipes and would-be lover of nymphs.
45.  The phenomenon of relativity in food was another weapon of the Sceptics: see Annas and Barnes, The Modes of Scepticism 31-65.
46.  Perfect balance: what is in his mouth kills us, what is in our mouths kills him. Cf. Pliny, Natural History 7.2.15; Aristotle, Natural History of Animals 607a.
47.  Cf. Sextus Empiricus, Outlines of Pyrrhonism 1. 57, Diogenes Laertius 9.80, Galen, On Temperaments IV 684K.
48.  Cf. 1.814-29, 895-6, 2.333-8o.
49.  Cf. Sextus Empiricus, Outlines of Pyrrhonism 1.92, Seneca, Letters 109.7.
50.  For the tale of the geese of Juno saving the Capitol from the invading Gauls in 387 BC see Livy 5.47.1-4, Virgil, Aeneid 8.655-6.
51.  Cf. Sextus Empiricus, Outlines of Pyrrhonism 1.58, who tells us that elephants cannot face rams, sea-beasts cannot bear to hear beans pounded and tigers cannot stand hearing drums.
52.  The mind is material, and so thought must also be material, caused like perception by the images. There are problems with abstract ideas, with free volition of thought, and L. does not attempt to explain how there could be an image of 'void'.
53.  Cf. 129-42; 2.700-717; 5.878-924.
54.  Cf. 2.704 and note ad loc.
55.  Cf. 3.1011.
56.  This is important as it proves that the images enter through the pores and not through the eyes which are of course shut.
57.  Exactly as in cartoon animation.
58. L. is careful not to split time into an infinite number of parts, as, e.g., Zeno had done in his notorious paradoxes. See Appendix C.
59.  As already suggested at 465 above, the misinterpretation of perception is the fault of the mind, not the senses.
60.  Another passage attacking the theological view of the world as held by Aristotle and the Stoics; cf. 2.167-83, 644-60,  5.110-234, 1183-1210, 6.379-422.
61.  That is, man himself is a teleological being, but nature is not.
62.  This looks forward to the scathing moral contrast of primitive vs. 'civilized' at 5.925-1010.
63.  L. passes from the mechanics of the desire for food to the less easily explained free volition which makes us choose, for instance, to read this book.
64.  Thus the mind is a two-way transmitter: it feels the movement of the spider crawling on the skin and then tells the hand to squash it.
65.  One of L.'s more extravagant - and less convincing - images.
66.  The essential nature of sleep is anaesthesia: the mind is still seeing images and dreaming, the involuntary motions of the body carry on undisturbed, but the external senses perceive nothing.
67.  Cf.180-82.
68.  As the spirit is responsible for receiving sensory stimuli, its dislocation will suspend sensation.
69.  L. does not explain how we ever manage to wake up. Cf. Schrijvers in Etudes sur I'e'picurisme antique I (1976) 247.
70.  L.'s dreams are suitably naturalistic, unlike the inspirational poetic dreams of, e.g., Propertius 3.3.
71.  Roman games lasted between seven and fourteen days (Carcopino, Daily Life in Ancient Rome (Harmondsworth, 1991) 224-5).
72.  To prove that dreaming is a purely natural, rather than supernatural, activity, L. looks at the dreams of animals.
73.  It is impossible, of course, to be sure of other people's dreams simply from their movements while asleep.
74.  The dreams mentioned are mostly anxiety dreams, allowing L. another chance to explore human insecurity (cf. 2.1-61, 3.59-86). Most of the 'literary' dreams known to L.'s readers are of this morbid/revelatory form: e.g., Herodotus 1.108, Sophocles, Electra 417-23.
75.  As, for instance, in the arena. See Carcopino, Daily Life in Ancient Rome 260-61.
76.  Cf. 5.1158-60, Polybius18.15, 23.10.
77.  Perhaps falling from the Tarpeian Rock: cf. 3.1016.
78.  L. again tilts at the folly of acquiring luxuries: cf. 2.2.0-36.
79.  The phenomena of bedwetting in children and nocturnal emissions in adolescents are superficially similar; what matters here is their connection with dreams.
80.  The sexual urge is an atomic mechanical response beyond our control; cf. Aristotle, On the Movement of Animals 703b5ff., Furley, Two Studies in the Greek Atomists. (1967) 221-2. Observe also that the beloved may be of either sex (cf. 1053).
81.  Democritus and Epicurus held that sperm is drawn from the whole body; cf. Hippocrates, On Generation 8.
82.  Poets had long used the metaphor of the 'battle of love' (see, e.g., Ovid, Amores 1.9, E.J. Kenney in Mnemosyne 23 ( 1970 ) 380-85): L. deromanticizes the flowery metaphors into crude reality.
83.  Casual pederasty seems to have been accepted in Rome (cf. Propertius 2.4.17-22, Petronius, Satyricon 64.5-6, J. Griffin in Journal of Roman Studies 66 (1976) 100-102): the boy here referred to is clearly a surrogate female ('womanish limbs').
84.  The irrational nature of sexual desire is plainly expressed in the crude statement of desire; cf. Euripides, Trojan Women 990, where Aphrodite (goddess of love) is punned with aphrosyne (irrationality).
85.  A loaded word in this book: if the lover can only have insubstantial atomic images, he is doomed to unhappiness.
86.  The ejaculation of sperm releases frustration: it is the retention of sperm by the lover that will thus cause pain.  The locked-out lover will also harbor fatuous illusions
about his beloved (1153-91).
87.  Love as a sickness is a theme in classical poetry: cf. Sophocles, Trachiniae 445, Euripides, Hippolytus 477.
88.  The essence of madness for the Greeks and Romans was hallucination (cf. Sophocles, Ajax, Euripides, Heracles and Bacchae): the lover who is deluded about his beloved is thus mad.
89.  Food and drink are natural and necessary pleasures ( cf. 858-76), whereas sex is natural but not necessary (cf. Introduction).
90.  Cf. 1272-3, Adams, The Latin Sexual Vocabulary (London, 1982) 82-5.
91.  The Latin word caecus means both 'blind' and also 'unseen'. Cf. Virgil, Aeneid 4.1-2.
92.  And a woman's, at that. For the indignity of enslavement to a woman cf. Democritus: 'the worst insult for a man would be to be governed by a woman' (B 111 D-K). This may be a reference to the 'slavery of love' as paraded by the elegists (cf. Lyne, Classical Quarterly N.S. 29 (1979) 117-30, Kenney, Mnemosyne 23 (1970) 389).
93.  For Sicyon as a source of luxury goods see A. Griffin, Sikyon 32 n. 2, Lucian, Conversations with Prostitutes 14.2.
94.  Cf. Cicero, Verrine 2.176, 4.103, 5.27.
95.  Cf. Horace, Satires 1.2.101-2, Odes, 4.13.13, Propertius 4.2.23, Griffin, Journal of Roman Studies 66 (1976) 92 & n. 1.
96.  For the carefree love-life of the young cf. Cicero, Pro Caelio 42.
97.  Cf. Plato, Phaedrus 255 c.
98.  The famous catalogue of euphemisms is derived from Plato, Republic 474d - a passage that Plutarch (Moralia 56d) tells us was a favorite passage of Plato in later antiquity; cf. also Sextus Empiricus, Outlines of Pyrrhonism 1.108. Many of the terms used are Greek, suggestive of the Hellenism that was rife in Rome at this time.
99.  L. is as irrationally contemptuous of the girl as the lover is irrationally besotted:
100.  The figure of the 'locked out lover' (exclusus amator) serenading the beloved on her doorstep is familiar in Roman elegy and lyric poetry (e.g. Propertius 1.16.17- 44, Ovid, Amores 1.6, Tibullus 1.2., Horace, Odes 1.25: see Copley, Exclusus Amator) and is parodied in Horace, Epode II.
101.  L. now moves into the acceptable form of sexual companionship based on seeing the truth.
102.  For the comparison of human and animal behavior, see note 74 above.
103.  Heredity is through the stronger seed: cf. Hippocrates, On Generation 7.8, Aetius 5.11.3. The sex of the child is not always determined thus, however - see 1227-32.
104.  The 'random' assortment of available characteristics denies any divine involvement, of course: but once the atoms have combined, there is no more 'chance' but only effects determined by their nature.
105. As, e.g., in Homer, Iliad 9.453-7.
106. The excess of the language here mocks the superstitious: cf. 1.84-101, 2.352-4  etc.
107.  Divorce being common in Rome, at least in the upper classes. Infertility was also a common reason for divorce.
108.  For the idea of children as an investment for the future cf. Homer, Iliad 24.540, Euripides, Medea 1033.
109.  Not a rude remark against frigid wives, but simply the observation that wives generally want children and so do not need the lascivious movements that (he suggests) inhibit conception.
110.  Agricultural metaphors are common in sexual contexts: cf. 1107, Adams, The Latin Sexual Vocabulary 24-5, 82-5.
111.  For the importance of habit see 880, Aristotle, Nicomathean Ethics 1104b3-13.

BOOK FIVE

1.  For the praise of Epicurus cf. 1.63-101, 3.1-30, 6.1-42.
2.  Epicurus was mortal (cf. 3.1042), but his philosophy enabled him (and us) to 'live a life worthy of the gods' (3.322.) and exceeded the benefits conferred on men by the 'real' gods.
3.  Cf. 2.1-4.
4.  Regarded by the Stoics as the ideal hero, and so ideal material for L. to denigrate. L. lists eight of his twelve 'labors' ( see Graves, The Greek Myths 2.100-158).
5.  In, for example, his lost treatise 'On the Gods' (Diogenes Laertius 10.27).
6.  Cf.4.757-76.
7.  L. mocks the Aristotelian teleological view of the world many times: cf. 156-234, 2.167-82, 4.823-57, 6.379-422.
8.  For the pathetic indignity of the superstitious cf. 1.62-4.
9.  See Appendix B.
10.  Cf.2..1144-5.
11.  The conflict of chance and necessity in Epicurus is a thorny problem (discussed in Rist, Epicurus 51-2). Here he would presumably argue that chance can cause/prevent the atomic collision, but that once the collision has happened, disaster is inevitable. See Introduction.
12.  Epicurus, like a prophet, reveals to men what is true but hidden: this knowledge is however available to all and does not rely on the superstitious apparatus L. mocks here. Cf. Diogenes Laertius 10.12.
13.  Who attempted to scale the heights of Olympus and were punished by being buried under the earth: cf., e.g., Ovid, Metamorphoses 1.151-62., Horace, Odes 3.4.42ff.
14.  It is said that Anaxagoras was punished for his impiety in denying the divinity of the sun (Diogenes Laertius 2.12., Plato, Apology 26d).
15.  For the hyperbolic adynaton figure cf. especially 1881- 92, 3.784-6 (with note ad loc.).
16.  Thales had claimed that magnets have spirits (cf. Barnes, The Presocratic Philosophers 5-9), and the belief extended to other inanimate objects: hence L.'s lengthy attack on the principle here and his lengthier account of the magnet at 6.906-1089.
17.  Atomic contact between the rarefied gods and our grosser world is proved impossible by the way gods can only be seen by the mind and not the senses.
18.  L. does not fulfill this promise - unless the whole of Books Five and Six are taken as proving the points necessary to establish the divine incompatibility with the known world.
19.  For the serenity of the gods see Introduction and 3.18- 24.
20.  Cf. Theognis 425-8, Sophocles, Oedipus Coloneus 1225 for the full tragic view that non-existence is preferable to life: and see Diogenes Laertius 10.126 for Epicurus' criticism of this.
21.  That is, a mental blueprint of a class of phenomena formed by our past experience of objects belonging to it: for this 'mental image' (notities, prolepsis) see 1046-9, 4.473-7.
22.  For the diminishing returns from this sort of labor see 2.1160-74. Throughout the book L. opposes the Golden Age theory of primitive paradise.
23.  Cf. [Plato] Axiochus 366d, Empedocles (B124 D-K) etc.
24.  The word infans literally means 'speechless' as well as 'infant'.
25.  This merely suggests that animals are better suited to their environment than we are to ours and does not refute the teleological approach to animal life.
26.  The four elements of Empedocles, rejected as the ultimate constituents of matter at 1. 705-8 29 but here seen as four types of atomic compound observable in the world.
27.  NB the atoms themselves are eternal, as proved at 1.215-64: what L. refers to are the atomic compounds (concilia) that dissolve into their component atoms and reform as new compounds.
28.  Cf. Aeschylus Libation Bearers 127, Thucydides 2.43.3 ('the whole earth is the tomb of famous men'). For Mother Earth cf. 795-836, 1.251.
29.  For the pun whereby radiis means both 'rays' and also 'shuttles' see West, The Imagery and Poetry of Lucretius 82.
30.  Cf.2.473-7.
31.  L. is presumably thinking of, for example, the eroding action of wind on soil.
32.  A famous dictum of Heraclitus (panta rhei): L. accepts the complete mutability of atomic compounds, but not the atoms themselves.
33.  For the phenomenon of shadows cf. 4.364-78.
34.  The examples are well chosen: the gods may be eternal, but their temples are not; and however great while alive, the tombs of famous men crumble to dust. For the thought cf. Shelley 'Ozymandias'.
35.  For the Trojan War cf. Homer's Iliad: the Theban war was told of in the now lost Thebais. Horace developed the notion of poetic immortality ('many brave men lived before Agamemnon ...' Odes 4.9.25-6).
36.  The inference is invalid: and L. has earlier claimed that the world is 'past its prime' and old (2.1150-74).
37.  Yet Cicero claims that Amafinius was first to write about Epicureanism in Latin (Tusculan Disputations 4.6, Letters to his Friends 15.19.2).
38.  The sort of disaster that L. goes on to predict will one day destroy the earth: cf. 2.1144-9 etc. If a total destruction is possible, then partial destruction is a fortiori more likely.
39.  If atomic collisions are random, then the equilibrium (of, for example, heat vs. water) obtaining could be upset by a random preponderance of one side or the other.
40.  L. narrates the tale in parody of epic, only to dismiss it as nonsense (406). Cf. Ovid Metamorphoses 1.750-2.4oo.
41.  L. mocks the 'divine' use of thunderbolts as weapons at 6.379-422.
42.  E.g., Aeschylus and Euripides.
43.  The tale of Deucalion (e.g., Ovid, Metamorphoses 1.253-415, Graves, The Greek Myths vol. 1.138-43).
44.  L.'s main purpose here is again to deny any theological/ teleological design to the world: he thus stresses the randomness of events.
45.  Infinite, in fact, as the atoms are eternal: hence every possible combination will in turn be formed, including our world.
46.  L. states this dogmatically - there is no evidence he can adduce to prove it.
47.  Cf. Empedocles (B37 D-K).
48.  A beautiful analogy: note how the 'morning' of the world is compared to the dawn of day.
49.  The ancients believed that the Black Sea always Bowed into the Sea of Marmora (Propontis) and never the other way.
50.  Direct observation being difficult, L. offers alternative theories that at least do not contradict the known facts of atomism.
51.  A difficult argument. L. seems to be asserting that the dense matter of the base of the earth blends imperceptibly into ever less dense matter, which eventually becomes fine air: hence the earth 'rests' on this 'other substance' and does not drop through the void.
52.  Cf. 4.877-906.
53.  An idea much ridiculed in antiquity; cf. Cicero, On Ends 1.6.20. The argument rests partly on Epicurus' assertion that sense-perception must be reliable, partly on the analogy of earthly fires.
54.  Cf. 4.353-63.  Images on their way to our eyes are roughened and blurred at the edges so that, for example, square towers look round.
55.  Cf.3.371.
56.  This 'other possibility' actually attempts to answer the second problem posed, i.e., the reason for the sun's ecliptic course from Cancer to Capricorn. On this difficult passage see Bailey's commentary vol. iii. 1416-20.
57.  As asserted by Heraclitus (B6 D-K), Xenophanes (A33 D-K) and Metrodorus of Chios (A4 D-K).
58.  That is, Mount Ida in Phrygia. Matuta is the goddess of morning light, associated with Aurora.
59.  Cf. 637-42 for the theory that wind currents affect the path of the sun.
60.  As held by Anaximander (A22 D-K) and Xenophanes (Aetius 2.28.1).
61.  Cf. Epicurus, Letter to Pythocles 94.
62.  L. is referring to Berosus, the Chaldaean, who wrote in the third century BC and introduced much Babylonian astronomy to the Greeks. Cf. Aetius 2.28.1, 25.12, Vitruvius 9.2.1.
63.  An ancient Italian goddess of fertility and flowers; she had a temple near the Circus Maximus, her own priest and games (Ludi Florales in late Spring).
64.  Goddess of crops and the generative power of the earth.
65.  Northern winds which move south for about 40 days after the rising of Sirius on 23 July. Cf. 6.716.
66.  God of wine (inter alia).
67.  A south-east wind.
68.  Cf. Epicurus, Letter to Pythocles 96, Empedocles (B42 D-K), Anaxagoras (A42 D-K).
69.  On the assumptions that a) the sun, earth and moon are (at the moon's eclipse) in a straight line, and b) that the sun is as small as it looks from the earth (564-74) and thus the massive earth casts a divergent conical shadow.
70.  As asserted by Empedocles (Aetius 5.26.4)
71.  Cf. Empedocles (B82 D-K).
72.  A gross parody of the Stoic theory: cf. 2.1153-4.
73.  As held by, e.g., Anaximander (A30 D-K).
74.  Cf. 2.871 (& n. 87), 899 etc.
75.  An idea attributed to Epicurus by Censorinus, On the Birthday 4.9 (Usener 333), but already found in the fifth-century BC thinker Archelaus (A1, A4 D- K).
76.  The cold, frost and winds were as young and feeble as the living things. Cf. 925-87, Virgil, Georgics 2.338.
77.  Cf. 2.1150-74.
78.  In the absence of all teleological direction, the random collisions of atoms would produce every possible form, of which only some could survive.
79.  The same three species are endowed with the same qualities at 3.741-3; cf. Aristotle, Natural History of Animals 488b15.
80.  L. - ever ready to refute superstition - now proves biologically what he has already shown in atomic terms at 2. 700-717 and in phenomenological terms at 4.732-48 .
81.  Cf. 4.732, Ovid, Amores 3.12.21.
82.  Cf. 4.640-41, 6.970-72.
83.  The name Chimera means 'she-goat' in Greek. Cf. 2.705, Homer, Iliad 6.181-2.
84.  Primitive man was bigger (925-30), but not ludicrously large as the mythical Giants were. L. here refers to Atlas.
85.  On L.'s view of early man and the concept of progress see Introduction.
86.  An idea developed later 1019-25 .
87.  L. takes a lot of trouble to refute a theory for which we have no evidence earlier than this passage. The fanciful idea of men fearing eternal night is contrasted with the far more realistic fear of being eaten in the dark.
88.  A vital paragraph in L.'s ethical theory; see Introduction.
89.  Something of a cliche: cf. Aeschylus, Seven against Thebes 1020-21, Gorgias (B5a D-K), Ennius, Annales 138-9v, etc.
90.  Cf. 2.557-9. For the folly of sailing cf. Virgil, Georgics 1.254. Propertius 3.7.37.
91.  A textually corrupt line: the reading translated offers a double contrast between self-inflicted accident and deliberate homicide.
92.  Often called the 'social contract' theory of justice: cf. Plato, Republic 2.358-9, and contrast the theory of inborn justice found in, for example, Cicero, On Duties 1.157-60.
93.  Cf. Epicurus, Letter to Herodotus 75-6, Diodorus Siculus 1.8.3-4.
94.  As suggested by, e.g., Democritus (B26 D-K), Plato, Cratylus 388e-390e, Protagoras 322a5-6.
95.  Notities, prolepsis: see 181-6 & note 21, 2.745.
96.  From Epirus in north-west Greece: good hunting and sheep-dogs.
97.  Cf. Horace, Odes 3.17, 1 2-13.
98.  And not Prometheus stealing it from the gods, as in the myth. For the analysis of lightning see 6.160-218.
99.  Here follows one of L.'s few ethical passages: cf. 2.1-61, 3.59-73, 830-1094.
100.  Cf. Sisyphus at 3.995-1002.
101.  Metaphorically speaking, of course: L. (in Book 3) has proved that the Underworld (Tartarus) does not exist as a place of torment.
102.  Lathe biosas ('live in secret') was one of Epicurus' most famous slogans.
103.  Which are the only 'true' sources of our knowledge of the world: see 4.478- 521.
104.  This sentence has more ethical than historical truth: the pride of kingship is humbled, but many societies have never abandoned their monarchies.
105.  L.'s language here suggests that laws were a compromise, justice being (on balance) a lesser irritant than injustice.
106.  In Glaucon's tale of Gyges and his ring (Plato, Republic 2.359d-360d), where Gyges becomes invisible and so can always escape detection for his crimes, it is assumed that even just men will seek to commit unjust acts if they can be sure of escaping detection. L.'s answer to this is simply to deny that any man ever could be sure of escaping detection, and that the consequent fear would upset his tranquility.
107.  Cf.4.1018-19.
108.  Epicurus did not doubt their existence - the truth of our perceptions of them assures that (Letter to Menander 123) - but urges against fear of them.
109.  Cf. 6.76-7, Sextus Empiricus, Against the Mathematicians 9.2.5, Cicero, On the Nature of the Gods 1.46.
110.  Cf.4.788-801.
111.  Cf. Empedocles B124 (D-K).
112.  Cf. Diogenes Laertius 10.10 and see 1203, 6.68-78 for a definition of real Epicurean worship of the gods.
113.  As placed at crossroads or boundaries; cf. Theophrastus, Characters 16.5.
114.  As faced first by the Romans in 280 BC when Pyrrhus (319-272 BC) used them at Lucania (cf. 1302).
115.  The ceremonial rods and axes carried by the lictors (attendants of senior state officials), here standing for the power itself.
116.  For the explanation of earthquakes see 6.535-607.
117.  Aes can mean both 'copper' and 'bronze', but L. almost certainly means the alloy from here onwards in his description of the uses of the metal.
118.  Note how L. plays repeatedly on the parallel military and agricultural uses of metals.
119.  In fact chariots preceded cavalry.
120.  Cf. 3.642.
121.  Elephants, so called because they were first seen in Pyrrhus' army in Lucania (Pliny, Natural History 8.16).
122.  A difficult and brutal paragraph reminiscent at times of the Roman games rather than ancient warfare.
123.  L. suddenly undermines the whole detailed picture he has created: the hyperbole of the battle-scene is now deflated by common sense.
124.  For this common ancient view cf. Plato, Republic 455C.
125.  Cf. Democritus (B154 D-K) for the theory that we learnt the arts from nature - weaving from the spider, etc.
126.  Cf. 2.29-33. L. seems to be equating the life of primitive man with the ideal Epicurean life.
127.  That is, once the pain of need has been satisfied, pleasure can be varied but not increased. On the Epicurean doctrine of pleasure, see Introduction.
128.  Cf.326-7.

BOOK SIX

1.  The prologue depicts Athens as mother of crops and good things: the epilogue sees Athens as place of disease and death (1138-1286).
2.  Cf. Cicero, For Flaccus 26.62.
3.  Epicurus: for his 'oracular' powers cf. 1. 738-9, 5.111-12.
4.  Cf. Homer, Odyssey 8.74.
5.  As the wise man will be contented with a little: cf. 2.20-36.
6.  A metaphor for the mind of man; cf. 3.1003-10.
7.  That is, pleasure - but see Introduction for discussion of this concept.
8.  Cf.5.195-234.
9.  35-41 = 2.55-61 = 3.87-93.
10.  5.91-770.
11.  Probably imitating Parmenides (B1 D-K).
12.  Cf. 1.63, 69, 5.1200.
13.  See 3.1 8-24.
14.  As in the legends of, for example, Niobe, Arachne, Pentheus.
15.  The Etruscans divided the sky into sixteen areas and then observed the movements of, for example, lightning in the different zones.
16.  The Muse especially associated with epic poetry (cf. Empedocles B131 D-K). See Appendix A.
17.  It was portentous 'if it did: cf. Horace, Odes 1.34.5-8, Virgil, Aeneid 9.630. For Epicurus' analysis of thunder see Letter to Pythocles 100.
18.  Cf.4.75-83.
19.  Cf. Aristophanes, Clouds 404ff.
20.  Cf. 1.271-97.
21.  The simile is based on Homer, Odyssey 9.391-3.
22.  The famous oracle of Apollo at Delphi.
23.  For Epicurus' explanation see Diogenes Laertius 10.1012.
24.  Cf. Homer, Odyssey 5.490, Virgil, Aeneid 6.6-7.
25.  124-9.
26.  Cf. 3o6-7, Aristotle, On the Heavens 2.89a19-26, Virgil, Aeneid 9.588, Livy 28.37.6.
27.  L. is thinking of the beasts penned up to be used in the hunting-displays in the arena.
28.  For Epicurus' analysis see Diogenes Laertius 10.103-4.
29.  Cf. 1.489-90, 4.595-614.
30.  Cf. Pliny, Natural History 2.51.137.
31.  251-4 is modeled on 4.170-33.
32.  Cf. Homer, Iliad 4.275-9.
33.  206-10.
34.  The image is of a Cyclopean workshop: cf. Apollonius Rhodius, Argonautica 1.730-34.
35.  As in the myth of Deucalion (5.411-15, Ovid, Metamorphoses 1.313-415).
36.  Cf. 178-9.
37.  On the 'snowballing' theory of kinetic energy cf. 4.193-4.
38.  As autumn and spring have a natural mixture of heat and cold.
39. Cf. 86-8. There follows another anti-theological passage: cf. 2.167-82, 4.823- 57, 5.110-234.
40.  Often called simply 'the Thunderer' (Tonans).
41.  Cf. Hesiod, Theogony 820-80, Virgil, Aeneid 1.44.
42.  For the rationalist questions which follow cf. 2.1102-4, Cicero, On Divination 2.19.45, Aristophanes, Clouds 401-2.
43.  The rhetorical climax; cf. Aristophanes, Clouds 401.
44.  See Diogenes Laertius 10.104-5 for Epicurus' explanation of this phenomenon. Cf. also Aristotle, Meteorology. 369a10ff.
45.  Cf. Diogenes Laertius 10.99.
46.  Cf. Xenophanes fr. 30, Hippocrates, Airs Waters Places 8.
47.  L. is now answering the unspoken question 'What stops the clouds from ascending indefinitely into the limitless sky?'
48.  1.958-1051.
49.  Cf. Diogenes Laertius 10.99-100.
50.  L. has only just (471-2) shown clothes hanging out and absorbing moisture: now he compares the clouds to fleeces hanging out.
51.  Cf. Diogenes Laertius 10.109-110.
52.  Cf. Diogenes Laertius 10.105-6.
53.  Shown at 5.91-109, 235-415.
54.  In the fifth century BC: cf. Strabo 1.3.16.
55.  In 373-372 BC the towns of Helice and Buris, near Aegium, were destroyed by an earthquake.
56.  An abrupt change of topic - the following paragraph may be out of place in the manuscript.
57.  That is, the sun only takes a small part of any area of the sea, but the total area of the sea is so vast that the sun must take up a vast amount of water in all.
58.  The most famous active volcano known to L.'s readers, having erupted in 475 BC, 396 BC and 122 BC (when the whole city of Catana was destroyed: cf. Cicero, On the Nature of the Gods 2.38.96). It was also invested with superstitious tales of giants buried underneath it: cf. Oxford Classical Dictionary s.v. 'Giants'.
59. Erysipelas, linked by Celsus (5.28.4) with herpes.
60.  For the trick of putting words into the mouth of the imaginary opponent cf. 3.894-9. L.'s answer is based on Sextus Empiricus Outlines of Pyrrhonism 1.142.
61.  Where empirical evidence is unavailable to decide between them, and so long as they do not conflict with empirical evidence which we do have. See Long and Sedley, The Hellenistic Philosophers 90-97.
62.  Cf. 5 .742: north winds which move for about 40 days after the rising of the dog-star Sirius on 23 July. For the theory cf. Thales A16 (D-K), Herodotus 2.20.
63.  Cf. Herodotus 2.22.
64.  As first asserted by Democritus (A99 D-K).
65.  Seneca (Natural Questions 4.2.17) ascribed this idea to Anaxagoras.
66.  In Greek, aornos means 'birdless'. Lake Avernus is near Cumae and was regarded by some as the entrance to the Underworld (cf. 762-3).
67.  Cecrops' three daughters disobeyed Athena's command and opened the chest containing the infant Erichthonius: a passing crow saw and reported this to the goddess, who punished the crow by banishing all crows from the area for ever. See Graves, The Greek Myths vol 1.96- 100. The 'Grecian bards' include Callimachus, Hecale fr.2.60.
68.  Not otherwise attested.
69.  For this interesting theory see Pliny, Natural History 28.42.149, who attributes the same power to elephants.
70.  For the relativity of different foods see 4.633-72.
71.  Cf. Virgil, Eclogues 10.76. Mynors on Virgil, Georgics 1.121.
72.  Not otherwise attested.
73.  Cf. Aristotle, Natural History of Animals 604b29ff. For epilepsy see 3.489 and note.
74.  Cf. Aristotle, 5.444b31 On Perception and the Perceptible.
75.  A town in Thrace famed for its mines: see Herodotus 6.46.3. The mines became Athenian property when Thasos was taken in 464/3 BC (Thucydides 1.101).
76. The workers were slaves.
77. The Latin word aestum here means 'exhalation' as well as 'vertigo' -- aestus will cause aestus.
78. An Egyptian sky-god: on this spring see Herodotus 4.181.
79. At Dodona in Epirus in Northern Greece, a place famous for the oracular oak tree of Zeus, a speaking dove and the spring here described: cf. herodotus 2.55.7, Pliny, Natural History 2.103.228.
80. An island off the coast of Phoenicia: Pliny, Natural History 2.102.227, Strabo 16.2.13.
81. L. devotes a good deal of time to this because of the superstitious wonder it aroused: Thales has declared that magnets 'have souls' because they can move. (Diogenes Laertius 1.24); see also Plato, Timaeus 80c, Ion 533d-e.
82. In Lydia.
83. As explained in Book 4.
84. 1.329-69.
85. Cf. 4.595-614.
86. Relativity of effects was a favorite argument of the Sceptics: cf. 4.469-521, Long and Sedley, The Hellenistic Philosophers 1.468-88.
87. Cf. Sextus Empiricus, Against the Mathematicians 9.246-51.
88. Cf. Diogenes Laertius 9.80, Annas and Barnes, The Modes of Scepticism 57-65.
89. Sextus Empiricus strengthens the contrast by having the pigs actually eat the excrement they wallow in (Diogenes Laertius 9.80).
90. Cf. 4.643-72.
91. As discussed in Book 4: hearing at 4.524-614, taste at 4.615-72, smell at 4.673-705.
92. Cf. 4.176-215, 2.62-332, Rist, Epicurus 46-52, Long and Sedley, The Hellenistic Philosophers 1.46-52.
93. An island in the north of the Aegean Sea, not especially noted in antiquity for making iron rings: but its old name Electris reminds us of electrum -- amber, linked with magnets by, for example, Plato, Timaeus 80c.
94.  That is, repulsion, not attraction.
95.  Cf. note 46, p. 208.
96.  That is, chrysocolla ('Gold-glue').
97.  A reminder of the ring image with which the passage on the magnet began (910-11).
98.  Relevant here both because they can arise from the air and because the superstitious ascribe their origin to the gods.
99.  As often, the fact that beasts suffer indicates the atomic, non-theological cause:  cf., e.g. 4.984-1010.
100.  769-80.
101.  For the link between disease, heat and moisture cf. Hippocrates, Epidemics I.
102.  Cf. Hippocrates, Airs Waters Places.
103.  In northern Asia Minor, famed as the home of Mithridates whose ambitions had provoked three wars with Rome in the previous generation.
104.  The four points of the compass are represented by Britain (West), Egypt (East), Pontus (North) and Cadiz downwards (South).
105.  Elephantiasis - produces grotesque swelling and unsightly skin. Cf. Pliny, Natural History 26.2.8.
106.  No other ancient evidence links Attica and Achaea especially with foot and eye diseases.
107.  For discussion of the difficulties of interpreting the epilogue to the poem see Appendix E.
108.  L. bases his account on that of Thucydides 2.47-52. This book ends, as it began, with Athens.
109.  Legendary king of Athens.
110.  Cf. 660.
111.  One of L.'s main ethical themes: but the mutilated wretches here cannot be equated with the ignorant fools of 3.31-90.
112.  Breaking a strong taboo in ancient thought: cf. Sophocles, Antigone.
113.  For animals suffering the plague cf. Homer, Iliad 1.48ff. - but the pathos is original in L.
114.  Personified: cf. Nature in 3.931-51.
115.  It is arguable that lines 1247-51 should be transferred to the end of the poem to provide a more complete sense of an ending.
116.  Poverty caused lack of space, which increased the risk of infection.
117.  The rural poor came into Athens to escape the Spartans ravaging their land.
118.  A grim sentence: the gods' temples were perhaps crowded with the superstitious seeking divine cures - and the attendants who normally looked after living guests found their 'guests' were corpses.
119.  The final sentence is chilling: the living are injuring themselves to bury the dead (in vain as the dead cannot be helped by their efforts), showing us a picture of humanity still racked with futile pain and fear.

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